1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a shopping and merchandising system and, more specifically, to a shopping and merchandising system for online networks, such as the World Wide Web portion of the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Technology
The World Wide Web (Web) is part of a global computer network known as the Internet. Scientists and academicians initially developed and used the Internet to share information and collaborate. The Web functions as an object based multimedia system. It allows for the creation, storage and delivery of multimedia objects. Recently, on-line service providers, such as Microsoft Network, CompuServe, Prodigy and America Online, have linked to the Web. This enables their customers to access a variety of products and services available from independent content providers and other Web users. For example, a typical customer can access electronic mail, news services, travel services and online stores and malls on the Web.
The global penetration of the Internet provides merchants with the capability to merchandise their products to substantial shopping audiences using an online merchant system. Online merchant systems enable merchants to creatively display and describe their products to shoppers using Web pages. Merchants can layout and display Web pages having content, such as text, pictures, sound and video, using HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Web shoppers, in turn, access a merchant's Web page using a browser, such as Microsoft Explorer or Netscape Navigator, installed on a client connected to the Web through an online service provider, such as the Microsoft Network or America OnLine. The browser interprets the HTML to format and display the merchant's page for the shopper. The online merchant system likewise enables shoppers to browse through a merchant's store to identify products of interest, to obtain specific product information and to electronically purchase products after reviewing product information.
To promote their products, merchants often discount their products or have sales. Merchants can use a wide variety of discounting schemes to promote their products. For example, a merchant may offer volume discounts, such as buy two and get one free, or membership discounts where, for example frequent shoppers and AAA members get 10% off, or cross-sell incentives offering, for example, 50% off socks with a shoe purchase. Existing online merchant systems, such as Netscape Merchant System, support only date-based sale pricing, such as 20% off all shirts during the month of May. To enter the online shopping market, merchants desire an online merchant system that allows for a significantly wider variety of product discounting and sales schemes.
Similarly, existing online merchant systems, such as eShop 1.0, implement a generic purchase transaction model to capture the most common variations of a purchasing transaction. To complete a purchase transaction, a merchant sums up the prices of items, deducts applicable discounts, adds sales tax, receives payment and delivers the purchased items to the shopper. Although these basic steps are the same for many merchants, electronic commerce in a global environment imposes many variations to this basic model. For example, merchants generally have to include a shipping and handling fee for their online shoppers. Merchants may likewise have to include special taxes or fees, such as value added taxes or use fees, applicable only in certain countries or economic unions. In addition, merchants may issue their online customers private label credit or charge cards. Customer payment using these private label cards requires authorization through private networks, instead of commercial banking networks. Thus, it becomes apparent that to enter the online shopping market, merchants require an online merchant system that provides for substantial variations in the purchase transaction model.
Lastly, merchants typically store product data, such as product descriptions, prices and pictures, in relational databases. Online merchant systems, therefore, have to interface with merchant databases to access and display product information. Databases require a consistent structure, termed a schema, to organize and manage the information. In a relational database, the schema is a collection of tables. For each table, there is generally one schema to which it belongs. In an implementation of a relational database, a relation corresponds to a table having rows, where each row corresponds to a tuple, and columns, where each column corresponds to an attribute. From a practical standpoint, rows represent records of related data and columns identify individual data elements. A table defining a retailer's product line may, for example, have product names, product numbers (e.g., SKUs) and prices. Each row of this table holds data for a single product and each column holds a single attribute, such as a product name. The order in which the rows and columns appear in a table has no significance. In a relational database, one can add a new column to a table without having to modify older applications that access other columns in the table. Relational databases thus provide flexibility to accommodate changing needs. Once the schema is designed, a tool, known as a database management system (DBMS), is used to build the database and to operate on data within the database. The DBMS stores, retrieves and modifies data associated with the database and, to the extent possible, protects data from corruption and unauthorized access. Because each merchant organizes its product information differently, there is a large installed base of databases having a wide variety of database schemas for product information.
Available online merchant systems, such as eShop 1.0 and Netscape Merchant System, require merchants to organize their product information according to a predefined database schema. Hence, to use such systems, a merchant must either convert its existing databases to this predefined schema or the merchant must create a new database having the predefined schema. For many merchants, conversion of their existing databases is not feasible. For example, the merchant may have several hundred thousand product entries located in different remote databases accessed by legacy applications, such as a point of sale system or an inventory control system, specifically designed to interact with these different databases. If the merchant converted these databases to the predefined schemas, their legacy applications would no longer function properly. To protect their investment in legacy applications, merchants may have to copy their product data into a redundant database having the predefined schema. Otherwise, merchants may have to incur substantial costs to rewrite their legacy applications to support the predefined schema of the online merchant system. For these reasons, it is not cost-effective for a merchant to use applications requiring a predefined schema for existing relational databases. To enter the online shopping market, merchants require an online merchant system that will cooperatively function with existing database systems having a wide variety of schemas.